2008 Olympics Aiming For Open Source

An anonymous reader writes "The IOC is considering switching its IT infrastructure to an open source platform for the 2008 Beijng Games, according to an article on silicon.com. The Olympic IT program director says the move will save money on licences but warned that support costs for open source in China could yet derail the plans. There are also some photos of the Olympics IT operation."

Comments

Because

[sloths]

If they used Windows it would all be illegal copies.

Microsoft

[mikejz84]

I would just stick with Microsoft products in China, after the licences costs are....free!

Ironic...

[ThatGeek]

It's ironic. Really.

All this time I've been complaining how they don't let real amateur athletes in (they all practice non-stop for years under corporate sponsorship), when I should have been complaining that the Olympics doesn't let real amateur software in instead.

Re:Ironic...

[Anonymous Coward]

As one of these "not real" amateur atheletes in wrestling, how do you expect us to get the proper amount of training time in if we do not use sponsorships? Many atheletes use donations from friends and families, very few use corporate sponsors and they may only provide a small amount of assistance with competition fees. Every athlete not living at the OTC still has to have a job in addition to training full time. Earning $12k per year and putting your body through hell is not a cushy experience.

Now, the hockey and basketball teams, there is a different story.

sure.... the real story

[mAIsE]

Negotiations are not going well with m$ ;)

Re:I for one

[sumday]

Even if it was the winter olympics being held in beijing in 2008, your post would still be retarded.

Great...

[Universal Nerd]

I find it obvious that they have absolutely no intention of changing from legacy MS-centric software to free software (be it what it may). Free software has oficially become a bargaining chip for corporations that want to bring down the cost of Microsoft solutions.

I think it's a bad move to REALLY throw the yoke on Microsoft. The IOC being savy business men they are, smell MS's fears in the air and they threaten Microsoft's costs down - just like AOL did with them a little while ago:

AOL: LOL! M$, lower your prices or we'll use Mozilla, it'z 1337! ROFLMO!!!!1
Microsoft: O RLY? Here!
AOL: w00t. U teh r0x0rZ!!!
Microsoft: WTF?

Re:Great...

[tonyr60]

Obviously you know more about Atos Origin than I can find. The article refers to UNIX servers and looking at systems vacancies at Atos Origin, they are looking for lots of UNIX systems admins. And from a press blurb about the last olympic games "We're putting together an architecture that's quite big for a short period, but that's how it works. We have around 10,000 desktops, 500 laptops, 400 Unix servers, plus another 450 Windows servers."

I get the impression that the typical olympics IT infrastructure selection is based on business requirements.

Re:Great...

[grcumb]

"We're putting together an architecture that's quite big for a short period, but that's how it works. We have around 10,000 desktops, 500 laptops, 400 Unix servers, plus another 450 Windows servers."

That's kind of interesting, because the linked story offers the following numbers:

The IT behind the Olympics is a massive operation involving some 1,200 IT team members, including 800 volunteers, who run 450 Intel-based servers and Unix boxes, 4,700 PCs and 700 printers.

Anyway, that leads me to the point I want to make:

I've been promoting FOSS on Linux professionally since 1998, but this kind of muddiness always makes me question the wisdom of change. Not from a quality or philosphical standpoint, mind you, but from the perspective of protecting the clients from themselves.

See, here we are at the end of 2005, and the IOC is thinking about moving to FOSS and Linux by 2008. If they intend to move all 10,500 PCs and the functionality of ~900 servers to from proprietary software FOSS and run a 24-7 terrorist-proof operation with global reach, hooking into countless other data systems... They are, not to put too fine a point on it, terminally stupid. Any system-wide change this large should be the result of very careful study. Note especially the part where it says the IT system has approximately 2 volunteers for every single paid staff member. Try to imagine what the training would be like if the software isn't spot-on in its interface design.

BUT... if they're looking at re-working a few key systems in order to improve their robustness and lower their costs, then I would say that they've made an inspired choice that shows perceptiveness and leadership. 8^)

And that's the problem with much tech industry 'journalism' these days. We are given almost no useful details. I long for the days when a journalist's response to an ignorant readership was to educate them rather than to gloss over details.

color me whaaa?

[God'sDuck]

wonderful...open-source domain checking to guarantee Americas can only watch short clips of female figure-skating and assorted athlete bios. my heart fluttereth with joy.

Impressive cooling system

[DavidV]

These guys must be into some serious overclocking by the look of their cooling system.

http://hardware.silicon.com/servers/0,39024647,391 54787-3,00.htm

Security?

[TubeSteak]

Anyone else see all the makings of a security disaster?

"This led to wireless networks being banned for previous games but that too is set to change for Beijing in 2008... The technology has become mature and we will use Cisco's network admin control."

Unless Cisco is doing something we don't know about, Wifi security is nothing to rely on.

"Biometric fingerprint-controlled door locks will guard entry to the Olympics IT control room run by the International Olympic Committee's technology partner Atos Origin."

Slashdot has run numerous articles about how easy it is to bypass fingerprint biometrics.

I'm sure they aren't telling us everything about their security preparations, but the technology they're using isn't encouraging.

Is this a story yet?

[TrappedByMyself]

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games could switch to a cost-saving open source technology platform under proposals to be considered by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The open source move will be recommended by the IOC's technology partner Atos Origin on the back of guidance from sub-contractors that include HP and IBM.
Claude Philipps, programme director at Atos Origin for the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, told silicon.com the plans will be put to the IOC in a formal proposal and that the committee will then make the final decision.
He said: "For open source we have a plan to propose this for Beijing. It will save money on the licences."
But he said support costs could scupper the open source switch. "The issue might be support because especially in China you don't have all the companies we have in Europe and the US," he said.

I know the OSS advocates will wave their victoy flags, write eloquent stories about the demise of Microsoft, and rack up free karma, but nothing has happened yet. Moves like this are considered all the time when someone thinks they can save money with all this 'free' software. Hopefully with IBM in the mix, this will actually happen, but for now this really isn't a story. Come back when the decision is made.

Re:2008 Olympics: LINUX LOVERS

[Esine]

Obivously such important systems shouldn't be connected to the Internet. And if the password is secure (as in long and not based on a word) there should be no problem, plus no one should never ever allow root to login though ssh.

Re:Open Source censorship

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

But China is as well the worlds #1 for censorship

I think you'll find that the world's #1 country for censorship is NK. The place is a true information black hole, there isn't so much as a peep from the population that comes out of it.

Until next week

[MarkByers]

Wait a week or two and there will be a story where they did a sudden surprise turnaround and chose Microsoft anyway....

Re:Screw the Olympics

[bbbaldie]

The Olympics committees have screwed everything else up so badly in the past, I sort of wish they were trashing OSS.

Drug Testing

[MicroBerto]

How about some open source drug testing? Opening the whole thing up, making it completely public, would really help with cheating and all the other dirty garbage that goes on behind the scenes.

The first steps have been taken years ago.

[Jesus_666]

Marathon has been open source for some time now.

I call FUD!

[kimvette]

I think they've fallen for Microsoft's Get the Facts FUD campaign.

support costs for open source in China could yet derail the plans

How could that be? Does Google charge per search result in China or something? Are "man" and "info" unavailable in Chinese distributions? Is censorship so strong that users cannot get to related messageboards and mailing lists? *just kidding*

Seriously though - it seems to me that they'd still come out ahead if they have to pay for support. After all with a proprietary/closed source platform you not only have to pay for the OS, you have to pay for each OS and in many cases per-user licenses as well, and then support costs extra in many cases - to the tune of $225/incident. Either way it takes time (read: money / hour) to implement and there are training costs - either way.

IOC = corruption

[DNS-and-BIND]

Oh, come on. This is the International Olympic Committee that we're talking about here. They're more corrupt than the city of New Orleans. They don't do anything unless someone bribes them to do it. My guess is, the IT contractors aren't offering big enough kickbacks, and they're waving the OSS option around in order to get more money.

And there's the whole Great Firewall issue to deal with. How will the Chinese government deal with it? I don't think that journalists will like having the BBC blocked. Perhaps they'll unblock the space allocated to the Olympic village. But, even then, I don't know if the Great Firewall is technically capable of this. Even five-star hotels catering to foreigners are blocked, and they can show satellite news stations that are off-limits to Chinese nationals.

code reuse

[hey]

Why can't they just put the entire olypmics IT dept in a few shipping containers and ship it from city to city?! What a waste to redevelop/deploy it again every two years.

Re:code reuse

[TheMightyZog]

They sort of do that, to a point. Atos Origin, formerly SchlumbergerSema, formerly Sema, was contracted to provide the IT services for four games starting with the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. The software for the 2002 games was written from scratch (since IBM had performed that duty in previous games) and those systems will evolve through to the Beijing games in 2008.

There could probably be some good arguments for having the IOC take control of the IT services, or a portion of them, but I believe that responsibility currently resides with the body organizing the respective games (Athens, Torino, etc).

Working as a Olympic Volunteer

[paul.schulz]

In the Sydney 2000 Olympics I worked as a volunteer in
the Sports Results section in Adelaide, South Australia.
We had 6 of the football (soccer) matches and one final.

Our small team had to:
- Print the start lists of players when they came through
    at beginning of the matches
- (Watch the game.. a perk)
- Print the results of all the matches played around
    Austalia at the end.

The printouts (100's) were then run out to the various
people who needed them around the venue. eg. Game Results,
Media, Olympic Family (VIP's)

It was a low tech result, but it relied on IBM software
for the print jobs, and was centrally managed/controlled
on their network. Everything went through Sydney.

I don't know what would have happened if the network
had failed, other than we also had been given a Fax machine
as a backup.

It was a good experience, and FLOSS should be able to bring
somethign to the table...

W

Good News For the OSS Commercial Companies

[Master of Transhuman]

Just think of all the "Linux Rules!" ads that IBM and others can run during the Olympics, all sending the message "If the Olympics can run on open source, why can't my company?"

Ballmer must be throwing chairs. All his underhanded sneaky PR tricks in the IT trade press trumped by the Olympic coverage.

Bwahahahahahah!!!

And there's a new PENGUIN movie coming out! I saw the trailer the other night during "Harry Potter". Penguins dancing!

Between the "Madagascar" movie, the "March of the Penguins" and now this, penguins are gonna be the most loved animal on the planet before long...Linus must have been prescient (as well as bitten) to pick them as the Linux mascot.

Medal Events?

[SleepyHappyDoc]

"And the gold medal for kernel hacking goes to...."

I can dream, can't i?

And the millions of bootlegged MS CD's...?

[gelfling]

I mean this IS China, riiiight? Can you imagine if it turned out the entire games were run on pirated software...?

Olympic hardware

[tepples]

they better not plan on printing anything or using a wireless card.

If you're referring to the lack of driver support in Linux distributions, this is mostly an issue when switching from Windows to Linux on a given piece of hardware. In this case, if Microsoft isn't an Olympic sponsor, I'd hope that the IOC has enough clout to convince whatever business is selected at the Official PC Supplier of the Olympic Games to provide Linux-compatible hardware.